BALANCE… OR OBLITERATION?
She’s a single mother with ongoing stressful acrimony with an abusive ex-husband.
She – let’s call her Sue – works full time running her own business, which is going through financial difficulties; she has serious health problems that require special attention.
The kids are always a juggle – situation normal there.
She’s a classic poster girl for The Big Squeeze, the appropriately named Work and Life Index Survey co-authored by Professor Barbara Pocock, which found this week that work/life balance is getting much worse in Australia, and that full-time working women are bearing the brunt of it.
“I’m so busy,” said Sue this last weekend as she told a group of friends about all the issues in her life, “that I don’t even have time to cry.”
No doubt it’s only a matter of time.
But right there, underlined by a woman’s inability to attend to the painful issues in her life – not because she doesn’t want to but because she just doesn’t have the time – is an indicator of how ridiculous work/life balance is becoming.
Never mind finding time in your working week for happiness or normal family activities, or even just doing absolutely nothing: some people are so busy that they can’t even find time for the grief in their lives.
It feels like we’ve been talking about work life balance for way too long. And it feels like it’s been framed as a women’s issue for way too long.
Certainly it feels like a million years, not ten, since John Howard (remember that guy?) called the subject a “barbecue stopper” and nothing has changed. Except for the worse.
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7 Responses to this article
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Louisa September 24, 2012
This is exactly the type of article I like to read when I visit the hoopla. Up to date information about a social issue and some thoughtful analysis. I have been unemployed for nearly four months and just surviving financial. A life coach suggested I do all the things I haven’t had time for. She told me to nourish my soul. It’s the best thing I could have done and know that I’ll never deprive myself of soul food again.
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Panda October 10, 2012
Just came to this article from Tracey Spicer’s wonderful article on ‘too busy’. I too have been recently made redundant and for four months have crapped on about how ‘busy’ I am. I realise I’ve been running around like a headless chook trying to a) get work b) start a new business c) prove to my husband that it’s ‘useful’ to have me at home and ultimately
d) avoid my own anxiety about not have anything ‘to do’.While financially I need to go back to work ‘eventually’ – and I will when the right role comes along – this is also the first time in 20 years I’ve had an ‘enforced sabbatical’ and so finally should be doing all the things I say I’ll do ‘when I get time’. So I apologise to my Mum for not ringing her back, my best friend for missing her birthday party, and myself for not doing the things that I’ve always wanted to do ‘when I get time’. Guess what. I have time now.
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Nat September 25, 2012
I love this.
I am blessed to be employed by a company that is totally flexible with my hours.
When I returned to work after having a child, nothing changed. All the house work was still there, but I was working and not at home to do it. That was with only two days a week work.
My now 3.5 year old initially got offered 2 days at preschool next year. I so didn’t want 4 days work and him in care for four days. I requested a change to one day of preschool, but lost his place. Just today I submitted his re-enrollment form for next year at day care three days a week. I am so not sure about it. I know if I do work 3 days next year, we are getting a cleaner. But, I’m worried as with day care, the days are longer, no school holiday breaks will it be too much for my son and I? -
Sophie September 25, 2012
Until just as many men work part time as women I don’t see it changing. So that I see my kids at night – make them dinner and read them their bedtime stories – I often then return to the office or work at the home computer until at least midnight. By the weekend the laundry pile looks like Mt Everest. Add into the mix work colleagues who only ever send me urgent correspondence on the one day a week I don’t officially work. All this is manageable – just – until someone gets sick – and anyone going through their first winter of child care, kindy or school knows that you are signing up to a full winter of at least one family member out for the count every day. The biggest difference I find in terms of sanity levels of working parents is those who have supportive and available grandparents/partners to call on and those who don’t… perhaps if grandparents could qualify for child care provision and we could rebate some payments to them for the assistance they provide (if they need it) it would work out better for all …
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Ro. Watson September 25, 2012
As a lawyer I tried negotiating for part-time work in the eighties and nineties~ not for raising kids~just because I felt a four day week was better than a five day week. I ended up leaving because as a somewhat mediocre lawyer I had no leverage to go part-time~actually sometimes I was a brilliant lawyer,but not all the time.
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Benison O'Reilly September 25, 2012
I often wonder what my life would be like if I hadn’t had my third child, who ended up having autism. I gave up work to run his home therapy program in 2004 and essentially never went back. I work from home now, as a writer, which means my income has dropped substantially, but it does allow for much more balance in my life – to attend to my kids’ needs, exercise etc. That said, I have a deadline for my next book looming so I’m under lots of pressure at the moment. Better get back to it.
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Rachel October 2, 2012
Great article Lucy and one so many of us can nod in agreement with ! Teenage children , a busy home based business with long hours , aging parents a husband and ……. me . So whats the answer ?
